Setting File Path in Mathcad Prime 9.0

[vroberts]

I am doing some image processing in Mathcad Prime 9.0 and the path to the image files is so long that it runs off the right side of the screen. I see a discussion from 2011 for setting a path in older versions of Mathcad (15?) but I cannot seem to find that option in Prime 9.0.

Well, as you may see from my other message, I switched to MC 15, but has the same path issue until I learned that I could use character strings as variables.   So, now have two path variables and a third string name set to the file name, and I concatenate all three with "concat" in the following manner:

Array := READBMP(concat(Path1,Path2,Image_78_7)) 

[vnamboodheri]

Hi vroberts,

Thank you for your question. 
I’d like to recommend to bring more details and context to your initial inquiry. 

It also helps to have screenshot(s) to better understand what you are trying to do in your process. 

This will increase your chances to receive meaningful help from other Community members. 

Regards,

Community moderation Team.

[Werner_E · Accepted solution]

I don't believe that @vroberts  has any questions on this anymore.

He was just trying to share with the community his solution for a problem he had in the past, I guess.

[vroberts]

Werner_E, 

I also discovered in this exercise that READBMP in MC15 is 10 to 100 times faster than in Prime 9.0 and can handle much larger image sizes. How is it possible that we are up to the 9th revision of Prime and MC15 is still the best solution? 

[Werner_E]

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@vroberts wrote:

Werner_E, 

I also discovered in this exercise that READBMP in MC15 is 10 to 100 times faster than in Prime 9.0 and can handle much larger image sizes. How is it possible that we are up to the 9th revision of Prime and MC15 is still the best solution? 

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Its not understandable that Prime still is so much behind of MC15 - with respect to features, usability and, yes, also speed of operation.

And as of READBMP, I had not noticed the slow operation in Prime so far because I didn't use it. After all its not fun to read-in and manipulate image files and not having an easy way to display the image - there is no image operator in Prime as we were used from MC15 and below 😞

On contrary to MC15, Prime is a native 64 bit application having access to the full amount of memory installed and to all resources the modern processors provide (and the OS would allow to access). Given that, the poor performance of Prime, especially when used with larger sheets or a bit more complex calculations, is quite disappointing.
I am also surprised that you wrote that MC15 would be able to handle larger image files than Prime. I would have expected it to be the other way round as Prime could access much more memory than MC15 can.

According to @DJNewman  the Prime development team is aware of the performance problem and speeding up Prime is primary priority for version 11.

[vroberts]

It may not be fair to blame the whole speed issue on READBMP. I was using READBMP and a surface plot to analyze the intensity distribution of gray scale images. It was this combination that was about 100 times faster in MC15 than Prime 9.0. Also Prime limited the image size to 40,000 pixels, while MC 15 allowed me to use at least 100,000 pixels and perhaps many more, as I did not test the size limits.

[Werner_E]

Ah, so I got you wrong. I thought you mean that the size of the image read in by READBMP would be limited, which would have rendered that function rather useless.

The limitation to 40000 points for a 3D plot may be a bit hefty. But at least its documented in the help - unfortunately not in the chapter for 3D-plots but at the XY plots 😞

I don't know of the limit in MC15 (I expect there to be a limit as well) but its sure a higher value. I just tested 10^6 points - it took a while but it worked OK. Maybe, similar to matrices, just the available memory is the limit ...